modern husbands would allow. She had attentively
listened to all the historical and moral subjects so divinely discussed
between the first Angel and the first Man; and perhaps there can
scarcely be found a more beautiful trait of a delicately attentive wife,
than she exhibits, by withdrawing at the exact point of propriety. She
does not retire in consequence of any look or gesture, any broad sign of
impatience, much less any command or intimation of her husband; but with
the ever watchful eye of vigilant affection and deep humility:

When by his countenance he seem'd
Entering on thoughts abstruse,

instructed only by her own quick intuition of what was right and
delicate, she withdrew. And here again how admirably does the poet
sustain her intellectual dignity, softened by a most tender stroke of
conjugal affection.

Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
Delighted, or not capable her ear
Of what was high--such pleasure she reserved,
Adam relating, she sole auditress----

On perusing, however, the tete-a-tete which her absence occasioned,
methinks I hear some sprightly lady, fresh from the Royal Institution,
express her wonder why Eve should be banished by her husband from
Raphael's fine lecture on astronomy which follows; was not she as
capable as Adam of understanding all he said, of

Cycle and Epicycle, Orb on Orb?

If, however, the imaginary fair objector will take the trouble to read
to the end of the eighth book of this immortal work, it will raise in
her estimation both the poet and the heroine, when she contemplates the
just propriety of her being absent before Adam enters on the account of
the formation, beauty and attractions of his wife, and of his own love
and admiration. She will further observe, in her progress through this
divine poem, that the author is so far from making Eve a mere domestic
drudge, an unpolished housewife, that he pays an invariable attention
even to external elegance, in his whole delineation, ascribing grace to
her steps and dignity to her gesture. He uniformly keeps up the same
combination of intellectual worth and polished manners;

For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.

And her husband, so far from a churlish insensibility to her
perfections, politely calls her

Daughter of God and man, _accomplish'd_ Eve.

I will not, however, affirm that Adam, or even Milton, annexed to the
term _accomplished_ precisel